Tim Burton Pitched 'Genius' Way to Kill Off Jeffrey Jones' Charles Deetz Character in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”

Charles Deetz's animated death sequence came straight from the director's own nightmares, according to screenwriter Alfred Gough

Warning: This article contains spoilers from Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

Though Jeffrey Jones does not appear as Charles Deetz in director Tim Burton's sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the new movie places that character's death front and center — and its accompanying animated sequence is straight from Burton's nightmares.

While speaking with Entertainment Weekly about Jones' absence from the film, screenwriter Alfred Gough, who cowrote the new movie with Miles Millar, said that Burton, 66, pitched the stop-motion animated plane crash and shark attack sequence used to showcase Charles' death early in the film.

"The way Charles dies in that animated piece is Tim's nightmare of dying," Gough, 57, said. "He literally pitched that: 'My nightmare is, I'm in a plane crash, I survive the plane crash, I almost drown, and then a shark eats me.' "

"We were like, 'Well, that's genius. So that's going to be how he dies,' " he added.

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Beetlejuice Beetlejuice's plot kicks off with Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) and her daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), learning of Charles' death. They subsequently return to Wind River, Conn. to mourn with Lydia's stepmother, Delia (Catherine O'Hara), setting up an unfortunate reunion with Michael Keaton's title character.

"Charles dying was the impetus for doing it," Gough told EW of conceiving the long-awaited sequel. "Then what happens when Charles dies? Because, as you know, when you have these moments of family crisis, I think everybody likes to believe a family gets stronger. A family doesn't. Whatever fissures are in your family, in a way, get magnified."

The screenwriter adds, "So it was just the idea of having these three generations of women under one roof in this very intense situation and how they're dealing with it and the forces that come with that."

Related: Tim Burton Explains Why Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis Aren't in the Beetlejuice Sequel (Exclusive)

Jones, 77, has acted only sparingly since he pleaded no contest in 2003 to charges of possession of child pornography over his alleged hiring of a 14-year-old boy to pose for lewd snapshots. EW reported at the time that he was sentenced to five years probation, counseling and registration as a sex offender for the rest of his life. He was later arrested two more times for failing to update his sex offender status, BBC News reported in 2010.

Despite the actor's absence from Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Charles still receives a significant amount of screen time following his stop-motion death scene, wandering around the afterlife after losing much of the top half of his body to a deadly shark bite.

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